The Christian Taliban’s Anti-Gay Witch Hunt
While our troops are fighting in Iraq to [supposedly] protect our freedoms, gay high school students in Ponce De Leon, FL have to fight for their freedom to simply be who they are without having to deal with any negative backlash. Such is the case of a lesbian high school student in a bible-belt conservative community. After complaining to principal David Davis about students taunting her because of her being a lesbian, Davis respond appropriately, by suspending the student, outing her to her parents as a lesbian, and ordering her to stay away from children. Huh?
But wait, it gets even better. When her friends protested against the decision by wearing gay pride buttons and t-shirts, the principal responded by suspending the students, and interrogating people to find out if they are gay or not. One of those students, Heather Gilman (pictured here), told her mother Andrea, who then contacted the ACLU to file a lawsuit on her daughter’s behalf. Thankfully, the judge ruled that Davis did indeed violate the student’s civil rights, and ordered the school district to pay up. Davis wounded up demoted, and school employees have to go through sensitivity training.
“Davis embarked on what can only be characterized as a ‘witch hunt’ to identify students who were homosexual and their supporters, further adding fuel to the fire,” U.S. District Judge Richard Smoak recounted in his ruling. “He went so far as to lift the shirts of female students to insure the letters ‘GP’ or the words ‘Gay Pride’ were not written on their bodies.”
What’s most disturbing is the fact that so many of the county’s residents support Davis and his audacious behavior, simply because he acted in line with most of the community’s narrow minded beliefs. It’s one thing to believe homosexuality is wrong, but it’s another to punish, cast out, and vilify someone simply because their lifestyle does not coincide with what you believe in. What the principal did was nothing short of a witch hunt. What if some ignorant redneck S.O.B. decides to target one of the homosexuals you’re outing, and brings harm to them or their families? Would you be able to sleep having something like that over your head? Is it moral to public humiliate a child simply because you don’t like who they are? It’s even sadder when these type of people are allowed to teach children their bigoted ways, and then we have a new generation of people who have been raised to think that it’s ‘moral’ and ‘christian’ to ostracize people just because they are different from you. I think this quote from Andrea Gilman says it the best:
“What happens when these kids get out in the real world after they leave Ponce de Leon and they have a black, homosexual supervisor at their job?”
Area 4:51 